BPMN: Business Process Model & Notation vs Process Timeline

BPMN: A Brief History

A small cadre of business and technical experts convened as the sun was setting on the second millennium. They were driven to assemble by a shared, laudable impulse: to impose structure on the chaotic world of business process. Unfortunately, commendable though their efforts may have been, the group was limited by both the primitive technologies of the era, and the innovation-crushing culture of design-by-committee.

Their work culminated with the publication of “Business Process Model and Notation”, an electronic tome replete with intricate runes and near-mystical incantations. And thus BPMN was born.
Like the tax code, it has become a discipline unto itself. And, like so many ancient runic languages, BPMN’s symbols and hieroglyphs are not easily deciphered. Into this gap between symbology and usefulness rushed devoted acolytes, immersing themselves in understanding its secrets, hoping to become indispensable to any and every BPM project.

Has The Use of Business Process Model and Notation Already Passed?

Sadly for its devoted legions, business process model and notation (BPMN) is drifting into history. Today’s digital applications defy flowchart modeling. The Internet of Things is spawning a new generation of event-driven applications, and adaptive case management advances via human decision rather than pre-set process flow. Finally, technological advances have transformed predictive analytics into proactive behaviors.

Business process model and notation is the square peg to digital application’s round hole – the two are just not a fit.

It’s Our Time: Process Timeline™

BP Logix developed Process Timeline as a completely new way to think about building digital solutions. No more flowchart spaghetti diagrams. No more trying to shoehorn critical time- and event-driven applications into a model that was never meant to support them. And no hyper-specialized business process modeling skills required.

Instead, Process Timeline frees you to express your journey in the most natural way possible: by listing the steps along the way. Any part of your process can respond to any event, deadline, action, or condition. Anything that can happen in parallel simply… happens: no more head-scratching design sessions spent trying to figure out which things can happen at the same time, and which cannot. And Process Timeline makes collaboration between IT and the business transparent and easy.

We think we did a pretty good job, and our customers and others seem to as well. Why not find out for yourself? Request a free demonstration today!